


The Way She Moves (In)

by james



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 11:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16094594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: Steve and Nat have...something.  Steve likes to think it's a good something.





	The Way She Moves (In)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kereia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kereia/gifts).



Steve never really knows what to do when Nat shows up. It's always unannounced -- Steve thinks she does that on purpose, for her own amusement, and not for any real paranoia. Sure, someone could find out where she's going and lie in wait to trap her, but then they'd have to deal with Black Widow and a pissed off Captain America (or whoever he is nowadays, sometimes Steve honestly doesn't know). 

Steve is more or less trying to live a quiet life, for now; he's taking time off and living in the country, out in the wilds of Jersey. (Bucky laughed himself sick when Steve told him.) He knows he'll be back eventually, but the last couple of years have been too much. Bucky's safely back in Wakanda, answering phone calls and generally being safe and sound and happy. Everyone else has gone to their own corners to lick their wounds and try to make the best of everything. Steve knows he should try harder to contact some of them, but he's too tired to even contemplate it and besides, he isn't entirely sure of his reception.

He doesn't know what he wants his reception to be. That's fine, because he doesn't have to do anything right now. He paints, and he reads, and he fixes up the old house he'd bought. He tries to let the world take care of itself for now and sometimes he turns around and Nat is in his house, acting like she lives here. She stays for days or weeks and never tells him where she's been or where she's going.

For all Steve knows, it's the only safe home she has access to. She's staying away from Clint and his family, though Steve doesn't know if that's a permanent situation or if it's only for now, if Clint is like Steve and just needs time away from everything. Steve has no idea who else she even considers a friend and who was just a co-worker -- he's flattered beyond words to know she comes here, that she's comfortable enough to sleep in the guest room and wander into his kitchen and insult his spice rack.

He tells her to do her own grocery shopping, and she just gives him a look and raids his pantry, like it isn't stocked well enough to feed a retired super-soldier for a month.

The big barn in the backyard houses a work-out area, and sometimes she'll spar with him and sometimes she spends her time on his couch, watching tv and pretending like she isn't nursing an injury.

Sometimes Steve thinks, this is what it would be like if he married her. Well -- presumably they would sleep in the same bed, or at least there would be kissing. He doesn't know if she enjoys sex, or if she is just completely un-attracted to him, because she has never given him a look or a word that says she's noticed.

He doesn't actually think he likes her that way, but it doesn't stop him from thinking about it sometimes, in the same way he wonders what if he'd stopping pushing for enlistment and just waited at home for Bucky. Bucky, who would have never come home, to a New York that would have been destroyed. 

It's nicer to think idle thoughts about being married to Nat.


End file.
